


The Symphony of White Elephants

by fairxv



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Angst and Tragedy, Arranged Marriage, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Changes to Lore, Changes to canon, Character Death, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Crushes, Death, Depression, Destruction, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Language, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Genocide, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Language, Magic, Male-Female Friendship, Marriage of Convenience, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Mind Manipulation, Minor Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Nyx Ulric, Minor Nyx Ulric/Original Female Character(s), No Relationships Added to avoid spoilers, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Psychological Warfare, References to Depression, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Spells & Enchantments, Starscourge (Final Fantasy XV), Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, Tension, Tragedy, Trauma, Violence, War, Wartime Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 18:37:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairxv/pseuds/fairxv
Summary: In a time of warfare, Verona Ulric is positive she's going to die any day now. Every battle brings her closer to the cusp of death. Following Niflheim's takeover of Insomnia, Verona narrowly escapes the city with her life. Her new quest leads her to the crown prince and his retinue. With nothing left for her, accompanying them to Altissia doesn't sound like a bad gig. But with the empire watching their every move, the route is harder than she counted for.To her horror, the threads of her past are unraveling, the truth threatens to come to the surface.*threads of an old life REBOOT*





	The Symphony of White Elephants

**Author's Note:**

> ~ Disclaimer before you begin ~ This work contains potentially triggering content, such as mentions of past child abuse, warfare and by extension violence, death, references to suicide, as well as mild sexual content. Additional warnings are in the tags, so please take a look at those for the sake of yourself. 
> 
> To those who aren't aware, this is a rewrite of my older work, Threads of an Old Life. This is almost a total rewrite, with only a few things remaining the same. It is NOT canon compliant, though this shouldn't come as a shock. Changes were made to the overall timeline of the game and Kingsglaive movie. If you have NOT seen the Kingsglaive movie, the first few chapters may seem a little confusing as it happens within the film, but you should still be able to follow along.
> 
> I also feel the need to say that there will be spoilers, for the film, main game, and ALL DLC's currently released, which includes Episode Ardyn. But that won't happen until later in the story, so you don't have to worry about it immediately.

Smoke and ashes rise in the night air as blood pools in the trenches surrounding the abandoned Lucian territory. Black particles danced in the sky as Niflheim troops prepared to lay waste to what remained. Soldiers on the front line laid as corpses, lifeless eyes staring up at the night sky, perhaps still blissfully aware that they would never see the sun rise over Lucis again. Moonlight painted the horizon, outlining pools of blood and body parts, both human and daemon.

Verona Ulric stands among the lucky few who made it out alive. Magitek ships hovered in the distance, prepared to drop more soldiers on them to eliminate what few remained. The unmistakable sense of urgency filled her, and for a brief moment, the desire to fight had refueled her. To fight for the deceased and prove their deaths hadn’t just been for nothing, though deep down she knew it was true. They were fighting for the territory that was already lost, already abandoned by the crown and considered a waste of time.

But yet, here she was, standing in one of its dirt roads, surrounded by the corpses of her comrades. For a brief moment, she recalled a poem she’d read in high school when she had other aspirations. It had stuck with her because it was about war, and even then whispers of warfare had risen on the horizon, entering citizens ears as the King tried futility to quell the rumors without inciting mass panic.

“War is not kind,” She murmurs to herself, summoning her weapon once more.

Daemon’s rose above the hills, looming and approaching them with a desire to kill. Magitek soldiers descended down from ships, clunking parts echoing in the air as fire tears apart the old outpost. Consumed in a land of fire, surrounded by death at every angle, Verona figures this is what being a Glaive is really about. Facing death and being brave still, knowing there was an impossibly real chance of dying in a single breath. Would she see the sunrise over Insomnia again, watch it touch the windows of the apartment she often took for granted?

“Move out,” Drautos calls amidst the destruction, “Move out!”

A breath of relief escapes her, the rumble of shuttles echoing in the distance. There’s a murmur of voices somewhere, a collection of Glaives who had survived. Verona stumbles on her feet, legs tired and sore as they carry her away from death. The part of her that craves dying is tempted to turn around and rush into the night, to see how far she could make it before a Magitek hacked her at just the right angle. There is another part of her, however. As tiny and hidden as it is, perhaps hidden behind her liver or stomach, it wants to survive.

She should be concerned with finding Nyx. That’s what wife’s do right? Care and pester over their husbands, make sure they’re alright, that they’ve got everything they need? Verona isn’t totally sure what it means, being a wife. Her idea of it still comes from storybooks she read as a child. In all those stories everything is peaceful and the only bad thing that may happen is the family dog escaping. She’d dreamed of the white picket fence at what point, to live in a nice suburban house with a dog and a husband, a couple of kids to suck her will to live.

Her white picket fence had turned into a shabby apartment just outside Insomnia slums. She’d got the husband part down, but was still unsure if they truly even counted. In all those daydreams she was madly in love with her husband, so much so that she never questioned what her life would be like without him. Verona sometimes wonders what her life would be now if she wasn’t married.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him - but it wasn’t the love a wife should have for her husband. It was more on the friendly side if that. Now they were just strangers. Strangers who inhabited the same space and shared a last name. Various factors had torn them apart in their single year of marriage, she was a child, truly too young to be married but determined regardless. It was what people did, you got married and moved on.

She’d gotten into alcohol and Nyx had a penchant for gambling and infidelity. It had been a single night, truly. Verona had met the girl on a single occasion, unaware at the time of what transpired between the two. She was a young commoner, not belonging to any particular family but being a simple nobody as far as people went. She stared at her with wide, distracted eyes and stuttered out a greeting before rushing in the other direction.

Verona didn’t blame the girl. Hell, Nyx probably hadn’t even told her that he was married. He took his ring off a lot, telling her at first it was because he didn’t want to lose it. Later she learned it was his expeditions with the girl that led him to discard it for a couple of hours. She would come home and see it on the table, gold band glittering in the moonlight. He’d finally told her somewhere along the way, choked it out after rumors had started circling. They fought all night until her throat went raw and they lost their voices for days.

It was the closest she got to leaving him, but she had nowhere else to go. Since then there’d been little love between the two. The only reason they hadn’t divorced was due to the things they shared - residence, a bank account, insurance. It was enough for the time to be practically separated.

Still, despite the betrayal, the alcohol, she still cared about him. Just enough to make sure he wasn’t dead. Then it was off to whatever bar was still open and drink till she forgot the smell of death again.

The shuttles that carried them out shook over the uneven, patchy roads. Nyx was on the other side of her, silent as fire rose over the outpost. Magic had consequences always, and though they’d heard the repeated mantra a hundred times, it didn’t stop one or two newcomers from trying to show off a spell they crafted with a helixhorn. Newcomers tended to favor elemancy as it kept them from the front lines, but more often than not spells failed due to the caster’s inexperience.

It left random bolts of lightning touching down at various times, fire claimed more than intended and blizzards raged across desert climates. Inexperience claimed more than reported. Yet they had little time to train new soldiers in how to properly cast, so what little time they had, soldiers were trained to protect themselves rather than to attack. It was about maintaining their dwindling numbers, rather than winning every battle at this point.

“Hey, V.”

Verona casts a glance over her shoulder at Nyx.

“You good,” He asks gently, sliding into the seat next to her.  
“I’m fine,” She murmurs, rubbing her hands together, “just get like this after every battle. You know that.”  
“Yeah,” he says, “just… Try and stay hopeful. The King is doing the best he can to end this.”  
“I know,” Verona huffs, “how many of us have to die in the process though? What was the point in this?”

She gestures to the scorched wasteland behind them as a building collapses, the sun of crackling wood and daemon roars being the only thing that she can hear outside of the hum of the shuttle engine.

“I don’t know,” Nyx says, “but it’s not on us to deny direct orders.”

She’d been doubting Drautos’ ability to lead for some time, but as always Nyx was there to remind her that it wasn’t her place. As always, refusing to hear her for what she wanted to say. It was all about hope for him, keeping hope alive for the citizens that spit at them when they returned. There was always a rowdy group waiting for them, a group of anti-war protestors who stared at them as though they were the worst beings to walk the Earth. Lower than daemons. She didn’t care much for their hope.

But sure, the children on the streets who told her they wanted to be soldiers one day, their hope mattered. It mattered to her more than anyone - to make sure those children had a safe place to grow up.

He was silent the rest of the way back simply sitting beside her. She could feel his heat radiating off his side, and for once it reminded of her when they did love each other, laying beside each other in bed, arms and legs entangled together, feeling his heat. Even now, much as she didn’t want to admit it, his heat was comforting. There was a reason after all that she decided to marry him, one outside that marriage was something people just did. She loved him enough at one point to decide that spending the rest of her life with him wouldn’t be too bad.

Insomnia was quiet at their arrival into the city. The injured were tended to, and what remained splintered off into the alleys, either headed home or to the bars. As for her, it was to the showers outside the training rooms and change into the clothes she’d left there for times like these. The idea of going back to the apartment right now just really, really bothered her. Like going there would inevitably lead to a breakdown, which was something she definitely, definitely didn’t want to do with Nyx around to hear her.

Breaking down was in innately intimate, private thing. She could recall her mother’s voice in her ear, reminding her of how uncouth it was to cry in front of others, attention seeking even. Her mother’s stoicism had followed her a majority of her life, and Verona couldn’t help but feel a tinge of shame after breaking down. It was in those moments, sitting on the shower floor that her mother’s voice was the loudest.

Thus, breakdowns were only an option when she was alone. When there was time for her face to regain normal color. Walking out into public with a red face and puffy face was just as bad as the act of breaking down in public. If she couldn’t fully hide it, it was unacceptable. Verona frowned, delving further into the city towards the Citadel. The few officers that were on night-duty acknowledged her with a small nod when she slid inside.

Everything from the throne room itself to training rooms was inside the Citadel. Of course, the throne room, as well as the upper echelon offices, were on the highest floors, with numerous security checkpoints that were more guarded than anywhere else in Lucis. Despite her service to the crown, even if she wasn’t permitted onto those floors without clearance from Drautos and direct orders from the King himself. The underground training floors, however, were within her limits as a glaive.

Everyone from Kingsglaive to the prince’s own shield trained in the rooms below the Citadel. She wondered quite often why Gladiolus Amicitia decided their training room was appropriate for himself, considering there was another one dedicated just to the Crownsguard. Perhaps he didn’t mind running around with them, if it meant getting in good training he didn’t mind too much. She’d trained with Gladio a handful of times, enough to develop a friendship with him that was able to expand beyond just that. He knew about her life, she got bits from his own.

She was always careful about what she told people, whether it was about her life before Insomnia or her relationship with Nyx and her feelings as a Kingsglaive. But Gladio didn’t seem to mind her secrecy. He never tried to question it, never tried to force her to tell him more than she was comfortable with. She liked Gladio, which was saying something, considered Verona didn’t like very many people.

The training room was notably empty at her arrival, which meant the showers would be too, much to her relief. Though she mastered being able to cry quietly enough, there was still something awkward about crying with others in the room. Hidden or not, it was her mother’s nagging voice. It was always after battles that the memories she forced away came back in full force.

She’d become a Kingsglaive because she thought it would help her. She thought it would help her conquer the helplessness she felt during Decima’s collapse. Helping fight to keep Insomnia thriving would help her erase the guilt she felt for abandoning Decima in the end. But it didn’t. The warfare only reminded her of the burning countryside, fires scorching the once rolling green hills, family homes collapsing as bodies piled in the streets. It reminded her of Niflheim’s capture of her kingdom.

She remembered the blood in the throne room, dripping off the ornate golden throne adorned with opals. The symbol of their family, covered in blood from the destruction, the corpse of her father still sitting upright, determined to hold his title as King till the very end. It was her first taste of death, the first time she ever smelled it, the way it clung to the air, mixing with smoke and the smell of the sea.

Verona released a suppressed gasp, opening her eyes. Bad memories - memories she never could escape, as per usual. The showers were empty, and as she shed her clothes, Verona tried hard to get the image out of her head. The image of destruction, of death, of absolute, utter hopelessness. She took a breath, turning on the faucet. Scorching hot water fell around her, turning her skin into an angry red. Blood washed down the drain, both hers and some others. It was nice to get clean, to rid herself of the physical mess war sometimes left on her skin.

For a moment, Verona allowed herself to lean against the wall, just breathing in steam in an attempt to calm her nerves. Battles always did this to her, put her in a weird state that left her going back to the dark places of her memories, wishing she had died in the throne room like she probably should have. She was meant to die in Decima, it’s the only thing she’s sure of. But Kai, bless his heart, had saved her and brought her here before collapsing himself. It should have been him, he should have been the one surviving, serving the crown and making sure the Empire would see defeat. He was more suited after all.

She wonders a lot why it had to be her.

After a long moment, Verona turns off the shower. The tears don’t come the way she wants them to, not in a cleansing way. It’s hard breaking down after a battle. She always feels like there isn’t enough reason to, she’s alive, after all. There are people who weren’t as lucky as she was. But in the end, Vera stars asking herself if luck and survival go hand and hand at all. For all the time’s she’s survived, be it back in Decima and today in Lucis, she wonders if luck played a hand at all.

She releases a deep sigh, realizing there’s no point in pondering over it. Fact is she’s alive, and whether luck was involved or not doesn’t really matter. All that matters is getting dressed and getting her ass to the bar, where she might actually have a chance at not thinking for a little while. She quickly dries her hair, trying hard to focus on anything else. Suddenly the tiles on the floor are the most interesting thing in the room.

When she pushes open the door back into the training room, she isn’t alone anymore. Gladio turns to look at her, eyes notably softer at the realization of either where she’s come from or that she’s alive. Verona isn’t too sure. He’s a big man, rough and cutthroat to a degree, which makes his softness surprising. He can be gentle when he chooses to, when he knows she needs it. When she’s taking shots without acknowledging the consequences, however, he’s hauling her up by her armpits and barking at her in that rough, deep voice to get her shit together.

“You good?”

It’s an arbitrary question with a deeper meaning, his own spoken wonder if she’s going to be alright later - after he leaves. Gladio is smart like that.

“I’m fine,” Verona answers, shaking her head.  
“You don’t look fine,” Gladio retorts, stepping closer to her.

Verona steps back, staring up at him. He’s all height and muscle, looking more and more like his father as the days go by. Though there are parts of him that are his mother she’s sure, but she’d never seen the woman to tell.  
“I never look fine after battles, you know this. I’m going to the bar.”  
“Unsurprising,” He answers back, “are you doing it cause you want to forget or because you don’t want to go back to the apartment?”

Like always, Gladio is an expert at understanding her better than anyone she knows now. He knows her secrets, her bullshit responses and what she actually wants.

“A little of both actually,” She answers truthfully.  
“You know the doors always open for you, right?”

Verona thumbs her keys, feeling the key to Gladio’s apartment on the separate ring. Nyx had asked her once what it was for. She gave a half-ass response about it being the key to her previous home. He probably knew that it was a lie, but it didn’t matter, cause he never found out what it was too.

“I know,” Verona says quietly, “I just don’t like intruding. I never know if you have someone over.”

She’d be stupid not to be aware of her friend’s sexual exploits. Every girl in Insomnia knew someone who’d had sex with him at one point. Maybe it was back in high school at a party where he was too drunk to remember it, or at a bar after a night of drinking, or simply because he’d picked them up somewhere and used his charm to get them into his bed. It was common knowledge. For that reason, she’d always been hesitant to go over, hesitant to spend too much time publically with him.

“Yeah, I don’t really do that anymore. Haven’t in a while,” Gladio says, “all the training for Altissia has kept me busy and what time I do have I’m not out cruising the town.”  
“I believe you, it’s just hard to escape a reputation you know?”

She kicks his shin lightly, bringing a small smile to his face.

“Trust me, I do. I hear enough from my old man about it. But seriously, if you need to, the doors open.”  
“I’ll probably take you up on the offer. Gotta see you one more time before you leave me.”  
“I’ll be back,” Gladio chuckles.  
“But you don’t know when.”

There was no telling how long the trip to Altissia would take, and him being the prince’s shield meant he was pretty much stuck beside him. Until Noctis and Lady Lunafreya returned to Insomnia, he would be away. She supposed it was the price of being his friend, the inescapable reality that business as Crownsguard would always draw him away for long periods of time. It was a depressing thought.

“I’ll be back,” Gladio repeats, setting a hand on her shoulder, “besides, if anything talk to Regis. I’m sure he’d have no problem sending you over on a ‘work’ trip.”

It wasn’t like Gladio to encourage her to abandon her duty as Kingsglaive, but there was something different about him tonight. Maybe it was the reality that he really didn’t know when he would be back, and business with Niflheim would keep her too busy to simply abandon the Kingsglaive for a leisure vacation in Altissia. Or maybe it was the reality that there was no guarantee they would ever see each other again. Her survival was always a challenging thing.

“Yeah sure,” Verona jokes, “I’ll get right on that.”

They both knew the likelihood of meeting again. Neither one was willing to admit it, however.

“Be careful tonight, if you need me, call me. I know how drunk assholes at the bar get.”  
“Always,” She replies, patting him on the back.

She watches him leave for a second, his retreating figure etched in her mind. When will she see him again? Will it be when the war ends, and Noctis and his retainers, including Gladio, return to Insomnia for celebrations? It’s the only scenario she can think of. Though Regis only said he would be there to marry before coming home, Verona knew that Altissia was the safest place for the Prince, and Regis would do anything to assure his son’s safety.

Gladio wasn’t going to come back any time soon.

* * *

 

  
The bar was filled with various patrons. Regular’s played pool while chugging beer in pitchers, college boys played darts with one hand, the other clutching a bottle or wrapped around a young woman. It was Friday night after all. There were one or two Glaives tucked into a corner booth, nodding at her when she entered. People generally stayed clear of glaives, unless it was the more annoying ones that demanded to know how the war was actually going.

There were the overly curious, shameless ones asking if they had just been in a battle and wanted to know all the gruesome details, from what daemons looked like and how they bled, to how much carnage they’d seen since becoming a member of the Kingsglaive. Verona ignored them all the same, pushing them away until someone else stepped in. Maiden’s Kiss was one of the only bars in Insomnia that welcomed Glaives and treated them with respect.

Besides, it was also the one bar that knew what she wanted without her having to say anything. Jack and Coke was always her favorite starter, before delving into shots with whatever Glaive encouraged it. Usually, it was Pelna, who slid in beside her with a smirk on his face. She liked Pelna just fine. He was intelligent on the battlefield and loyal to a fault at times, but he didn’t annoy her the way some of the others did, like Luche or Tredd.

“Good to see you made it out,” Pelna says, “thought I lost back you there. You disappeared pretty quickly.”  
“Can you blame me? A girl wanted a shower.”

She does her best to play normally with him, the way they always do. Playing normal is a bit of a shared skill among the Kingsglaive. It’s all about hope, how it’s really their primary mission to keep hope alive for the citizens. If they’re out in public all mopey and depressed, it’s gonna become clear that Lucis is losing the war. It was all about keeping up a public appearance because even the people that don’t like them look to them for any sign that things are turning in their favor.

“No, I guess I can’t,” Pelna says, “so hey, let’s get some shots, forget tonight for a second right?”  
“Right.”

A couple of shots in and Verona remembers why it is that she doesn’t hang out with Pelna. He’s concerned about her wellbeing more than Gladio is, but only really because he thinks that her and Nyx need to patch things up to a reasonable degree, at least to consider actually being together again. They were better together, he always said.

“You really were doing better back then,” Pelna says after downing the rest of a beer, “you just seemed happier to have someone supporting you.”  
“Yeah well, Nyx decided to go and fuck some blonde reporter repeatedly so I didn’t have much of an option but to leave.”

There was more to it than that, she knew. Her and Nyx had been fighting for two months leading up to their unofficial separation about various things. Be it her alcoholism, his gambling, the fighting. It was a mixture of things that refused to allow them a break until it chipped away at the final pieces of their crumbling marriage.

“I get it, I do. Being hurt and all, I’m not trying to say you need to stop being hurt or anything, I’m just asking if you guys gave it a shot, trying to work past it.”

She couldn’t recall if they actually had. They’d worked things out enough to be friendly with each other when the time called for it, and they still cared about each other, but she doubted they could ever reach an agreement to be together for real again. Too much had happened, and with the constant threat of death, she didn’t really consider the prospect of getting back into a relationship.

“There’s a lot more to it Pelna, trust me.”  
“I know,” he says sighing, “you guys were… god damn, what is it the kids say now, goals?”

Verona laughed, unable to fight the smile on her face.

“Yeah, that’s it, goals!”  
“Astrals above,” Verona hummed, “you’re something else Pelna.”

* * *

 

  
Gladio’s apartment was a lot closer than the one she used to share with Nyx. Though, navigating drunk was always a challenge. She’d done it before, but it never made it an easier on feet that refused to stay sturdy beneath her. Really, she should have called him to say she was outside, but then he’d come rushing down and go out of his way for her - again, and she didn’t want that.

Using the keycard Gladio gave her, she drunkenly pushed it into the slot for the elevator, pushing in his floor number as the woman behind the desk stared at her. Verona offered a light wave, leaning against the wall as the doors closed in front of her. The elevator whizzed between the floors until reaching the top. It was always a struggle at this point, trying to get all the way down the hallway without waking anyone up.

She’d barely had the time to try opening the door when Gladio opened it himself. He regarded her for a moment before stepping aside to allow her in. The only light in the apartment came from a single lamp on the side table and from beneath the crack of his bedroom door. He was probably up waiting for her, as usual. He kept a hand on her back as he led her towards the bedroom. She wondered how many girls he’d led her like this.

“Hey Gladdy,” She slurred out, “how many girls you take back like this?”  
“Hush,” He replied, “you’re drunk.”  
“You’re right.”

Bookshelves were on both walls of his bedroom, filled with books of various sizes and ages. She hadn’t quite pictured that of his bedroom, but to be fair she wasn’t sure what to expect from the prince’s shield. She sat on the edge of his bed, laying back and letting her legs dangle over the edge. Gladio sighed gently, raising an eyebrow at her.

“You’re a mess,” he murmurs, pulling off her boots.

Verona stares at him for a moment. He sets her boots against the closest door before reaching up to unbuckle her belt, pulling it through the loops of her pants. She says nothing as he unbuttons them, sliding her pants down her legs and folding them up and setting them neatly on the dresser.

“I want a big shirt,” She mumbles, rolling onto her stomach.  
“I know,” he answers, chuckling, “I got you covered.”

She sat up again, facing away from him as she slid out of her own shirt. Gladio came up behind her, sliding one of his shirts over her, pulling her arms through the holes when she struggled.

“To bed with you,” Gladio said, pulling back the covers as she laid down.  
“Where are you going?”  
“To the couch, I’ll be in the other room if you need anything.”  
“You can sleep in here with me,” She said, reaching out for him.

He let her take his wrist for a moment before gently grabbing her hand.

“I’d roll over and crush you,” He says, pulling the covers over her shoulders, “trust me.”

There wasn’t much more time to argue with him afterward, as sleep came for her faster than she thought it would. 


End file.
